Overview
How can you tell if your study method is helping you reach your language learning goals? I determine this by constantly sitting down, kicking off my shoes, and performing a lot of self-analysis to ensure it is effective in improving my language skills.
In this video I share my process of self-analysis of my 1 minute recordings for the 1st week of the 30 Day Record Yourself Challenge
https://youtu.be/vCF-7nXSzYs
Value
It is crucial to be disciplined in self-analysis so you can determine if your study methods (like this challenge) are effective in improving your language skills. Also, it is a great strategy to track progression over time ensuring you are being as productive as possible and meeting your Spanish language goals.
Tips
Self-analysis is key If you ever get frustrated at the fact that your are not progressing in your Spanish language skills, take a deep breath and figure how exactly are you defining your Spanish progress and what language learning measures are you using.
Measures of Spanish progress for this challenge:
1. How did I feel?
2. Vocabulary
3. Conjugation
4. Pacing
5. Pronunciation
6. Ability to express myself
7. How can I improve?
Transcript
00:05
do you want to know how you can benefit
00:06
from only one week of review
00:10
let’s get started
00:15
amigos i finally finished my first week
00:18
of the 30 day record yourself challenge
00:20
by fingtam languages and i’m feeling
00:22
pretty good
00:23
but what do i do now doing this
00:25
challenge is a fun way of measuring your
00:27
progress in your spanish language
00:29
learning journey and we do this by
00:31
analyzing our recordings and asking
00:33
ourselves a few questions
00:35
reviewing the results that our study
00:37
sessions produce like the speaking
00:39
challenge because it is a form of study
00:41
is a crucial tool in learning spanish
00:45
the first question i ask myself is how
00:47
did i feel overall during this week did
00:50
i feel very scared while i was making my
00:53
videos or did i feel very confident
00:56
our principio mis amigos at first my
00:58
friends i was extremely confident
01:00
because i had already done this
01:02
challenge once last year so i felt very
01:05
prepared because since then i’ve been
01:06
studying constantly
01:09
in addition i’ve had hours and upon
01:11
hours of conversations with native
01:13
spanish speakers about various topics
01:16
then once i got started i got a reality
01:18
check
01:19
although i got through those one minute
01:22
long videos i realized that there were
01:25
some areas that i needed to improve in
01:28
apartments
01:31
apparently i lack a vocab because
01:34
there’s a lot of questions where i just
01:37
could not think of the right words that
01:40
were related to that specific topic
01:43
so
01:44
you probably noticed that i had a lot of
01:46
pauses when i was speaking and that’s
01:48
the reason why because i was thinking of
01:51
what i wanted to say but nothing was
01:54
coming to my head at the time
01:55
also instead of having that one right
01:58
word that i want to say like el marco
02:01
the boat i would just ramble on and try
02:05
to explain what that item was because i
02:08
couldn’t remember what that word was
02:16
like that thing that’s in the water
02:17
that’s floating so that’s what i do when
02:20
i can’t remember vocabulary it’s very
02:21
strange
02:22
and i’m trying to fix it
02:24
obviously because it’s very embarrassing
02:27
but we’re going to get there my
02:29
conjugation wasn’t too bad thankfully i
02:32
have been focusing particularly on the
02:35
past tenses or the two primary past
02:38
tenses the preterit and the imperfect
02:40
tense in spanish so it has been a lot
02:44
smoother for me to explain a story that
02:46
has happened to me in the past and
02:48
before it wasn’t always like that
02:51
because these are probably the most too
02:53
challenging
02:54
tenses i would say that there are for a
02:57
lot of spanish learners and especially
03:00
for me
03:01
but i didn’t have to think for about you
03:04
know five ten seconds oh like oh how do
03:07
i how do i conjugate should it be hugo
03:11
jugaste ugay i didn’t have to do that
03:14
thankfully just from putting in so much
03:16
work so i didn’t have to suffer too much
03:18
with those two tenses because i have put
03:21
a lot of study time in those and made
03:23
sure that i got them down
03:26
my pacing
03:27
it wasn’t that bad i actually tried to
03:30
make sure that i didn’t talk too fast
03:32
because i love to speak very fast in
03:34
spanish if you haven’t figured that out
03:36
yet so usually when that happens i end
03:39
up having a lot of pronunciation errors
03:41
but this time that didn’t happen because
03:43
i want to make sure that i’m speaking as
03:45
smoothly and clearly as possible
03:49
and by taking that advice my mouth won’t
03:51
be going faster than my mind can work
03:58
i fought a lot with pronunciation
04:01
and i would say mainly it happened
04:03
because i was trying to force too much
04:06
of my accent
04:08
este acento de minicano
04:11
like i was just too focused on that so
04:14
when i when i do
04:16
try to speak in this dominican accent it
04:20
really draws my attention away from
04:24
pronouncing the word correctly because
04:26
it takes a lot of energy to
04:29
for example conjugate a word
04:31
and
04:32
generate your idea for that sentence and
04:35
then also once that is finished
04:38
say that but in an accent because it
04:41
takes a lot of energy to create an
04:43
accent as well
04:45
so i think forcing the accent and trying
04:48
in a combination of that and talking too
04:51
fast
04:52
makes my pronunciation really messed up
04:55
because i also end up
04:58
uh repeating my words like
05:01
yo yo voya said i said
05:04
i don’t know why i do that but it drives
05:06
me absolutely crazy so i think i need to
05:08
slow down and make sure i pronounce the
05:11
words as they should without trying to
05:14
add too much flair to it
05:16
expressing myself
05:18
que la stima
05:20
i would give myself an f on this part of
05:23
the challenge because i felt extremely
05:25
uncomfortable doing it
05:27
and i felt very robotic as well so
05:29
that’s why i gave you guys this tip of
05:32
asking the question act like you’re the
05:35
person asking the question and then
05:36
respond to it so it’s a little bit more
05:38
dynamic and it’s just not so rigid
05:41
because that’s how i felt like i was
05:43
just responding to a question
05:46
and and then like that’s it just you
05:48
know there’s nobody here it’s just me
05:51
and i don’t know i
05:53
it should be fairly simple but for me i
05:55
was making it i think way more
05:56
complicated than i needed to be so i i
06:00
just closed down too much instead of
06:02
expressing myself and you know smiling
06:05
more
06:06
and enjoying what i was saying like i i
06:09
usually do it in a normal conversation
06:12
another good point is that i was
06:14
extremely tired if you did not notice i
06:17
was doing these
06:18
recordings uh like maybe around
06:21
nine or nine or so or something like
06:23
that and this was like really like the
06:25
last thing on my list of the day so that
06:28
was beyond i was beyond exhausted i
06:30
didn’t really feel like doing it so at
06:32
that at that moment in time i’m just
06:34
like i’m just gonna do this recording
06:36
like as fast as possible and not put too
06:39
much effort into it so that was also a
06:41
huge reason why i wasn’t really
06:43
expressing myself wasn’t very animated
06:45
and my energy was extremely low
06:48
now we get to the best part of this
06:51
challenge and finding out how can i
06:54
improve
06:55
to make sure i’m getting the results
06:58
that i want from this challenge to be
07:01
able to speak a lot better to have more
07:04
descriptive
07:06
stories and be able to have more
07:09
fluid conversations i know that i really
07:11
need to sit down
07:13
take my time and prepare myself a little
07:16
bit more before i actually start
07:18
recording these one minute long videos
07:21
because like i said beforehand i did not
07:24
put too much effort into it and i kind
07:26
of just
07:27
try to do it as fast as i can but when
07:30
it comes to our study sessions it
07:32
shouldn’t be just something that you do
07:33
on a whim that you’re going to do as
07:35
quickly as possible but something that
07:36
you’re going to put a lot of energy into
07:39
you’re going to put a lot of thought
07:40
into it so for example i’m going to sit
07:43
down maybe for a few minutes look up
07:45
some vocabulary words that i would like
07:47
to include in my story or you know
07:49
whatever that question may be
07:51
so i can have a good recording that’s
07:55
very descriptive because that’s also
07:56
actually one of my goals is to be more
07:58
descriptive to express myself better and
08:00
to do that i need to start using newer
08:03
vocabulary and also including new
08:05
phrases as well that i’m learning so i’m
08:08
able to accomplish that goal
08:11
also i want to make sure that i am
08:13
getting enough rest from night to night
08:16
because i was extremely tired every
08:18
single night that i was doing the
08:20
recording so i want to make sure that i
08:22
have enough energy to put into my
08:24
studies if not then i’m going to
08:26
rearrange my schedule so i know for sure
08:28
that i would like to do these recordings
08:30
at a different time when i’m not
08:32
exhausted so probably right after work
08:35
or maybe when i get back from the gym
08:37
just a few hours earlier so i can get
08:39
the most benefit from this challenge
08:42
because i want to increase my speaking
08:44
skills i do want to have more uh i want
08:47
to have more deeper conversations with
08:49
people i want to be able to not have to
08:51
sit here for 5-10 seconds and you know
08:55
try to think of you know what i want to
08:56
say then also i’m going to make sure
08:58
that i am not talking too fast
09:03
so i can make sure that i’m having very
09:06
clear and smooth sentences and not just
09:09
trying to have a million words a minute
09:11
because that doesn’t really value
09:13
uh doesn’t really value your
09:15
conversation if you can talk really fast
09:17
but you’re but you’re pronouncing
09:18
everything incorrectly and you’re
09:21
uh whatever you’re trying to say doesn’t
09:23
make any sense
09:24
now you know a really good method to
09:26
measure your progress with this review
09:28
session as you can see it didn’t take
09:31
much only one minute videos for
09:35
seven days
09:36
and look at all the feedback i was able
09:38
to give myself i also hope that you see
09:41
the value in these review sessions and
09:43
you start to incorporate them in your
09:45
study sessions so you can start seeing a
09:48
lot of improvements in your language
09:49
skills
09:51
thank you all for watching if you found
09:52
value in this video please give it a
09:54
thumbs up and let me know in the
09:55
comments section below
09:57
how do you feel about this challenge do
09:59
you like it do you not like it and are
10:02
you able to see improvements day to day
10:05
with your challenge
10:07
also don’t forget to subscribe to this
10:09
channel share with your friends and hit
10:11
that notification bell so you can be
10:13
updated for upcoming videos
10:15
as we go